Byron Pitts Joins ABC News

After 15 years at CBS News, Byron Pitts is joining ABC News as an anchor and chief national correspondent.

ABC News President Ben Sherwood said in a staff memo that Pitts will be based in New York and will start in a few weeks. He also wrote about Pitts' remarkable rise: Raised n East Baltimore, he was illiterate until age 12 and struggled to overcome a stutter.

Pitts recounted his story in a 2009 memoir, "Step Out on Nothing," about people who "stepped out on nothing" to help him — from his hardworking, tough-loving mother, to his college roommate, who helped him practice his vocabulary and speech.

Pitts has reported regularly for "60 Minutes," covering presidential campaigns, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the tsunami in Indonesia, New Orleans' recovery from Hurricane Katrina, and the 9/11 attacks.

ABC News also announced Monday that Emmy-winning producer and former Plum TV co-president Morgan Hertzan is joining the network, and will serve as the vice president and executive in charge of ABC News' non-fiction content development business in cable, broadcast and digital.